I found Core77 during right before my senior year in high school. I remember researching how I could become a footwear (soccer boots specifically) designer and stumbled onto the site and forum. It was a wealth of knowledge and I sucked up as much as I could about school choices and how to prepare for ID in college. The wealth of information and willingness of people give it out was invaluable at that time as I had no other way of looking into the ID world.

After I got into school, I saw it as a great way to keep up the design discussion outside of the studio world. Also was a great way to get more feedback on my school projects. Seriously I tell every underclassmen that ask for advice to start posting on the Core77 boards. (sadly only a few have ever taken me up on the advice) It's crazy how little student use the boards. You've got access to great designers that are willing to give you feedback, you just have to put yourself out there.

I used to post a lot (full self-realization!), and this is my first post in maybe months. There used to be a time when I had a tab bit of downtime during my day to quickly look and post, but now I just churn out work like a machine. I just like being apart of the discussion. It feels like a little community.

When I was in college I never really perused the site much. After I graduated started following this site a lot and although I have yet to post any of my work, which I will in time, I found the critiques from other designers to help me realize what skills I need to have to get where I want to be. Opportunities came along that allowed me to build my skills and I would say just from reading the advice of the people on the site, my creativity and work is leaps and bounds better than where I was at when I graduated, as it should be. It is great that students have an outlet outside of school to have their work critiqued by professionals, of all levels, from an outside point of view, something I wish I had done when I was in school.

Sain wrote:I found Core77 during right before my senior year in high school. I remember researching how I could become a footwear (soccer boots specifically) designer and stumbled onto the site and forum. It was a wealth of knowledge and I sucked up as much as I could about school choices and how to prepare for ID in college. The wealth of information and willingness of people give it out was invaluable at that time as I had no other way of looking into the ID world.

After I got into school, I saw it as a great way to keep up the design discussion outside of the studio world. Also was a great way to get more feedback on my school projects. Seriously I tell every underclassmen that ask for advice to start posting on the Core77 boards. (sadly only a few have ever taken me up on the advice) It's crazy how little student use the boards. You've got access to great designers that are willing to give you feedback, you just have to put yourself out there.

@Sain: Really agree with you here. College/university is it's own thing and oftentimes too separated from the real world -- although I have had some great teachers that are very practical and want to help the students ultimately be employable.

It is great to be able to see what other designers and other students are doing without having to fly across the country!